About the same time that I first read THE HOBBIT (the early 1970s), I also read:
Over the years, it's blurred as to which had more impact on me at the time. I read broadly as a pre-teen kid, but my folks had definite ideas about what was and was not a part of the canon. Not that I objected--I still think such as CHARLOTTE'S WEB and TREASURE ISLAND, among many others, are fabulous--but there was enough that I was just never exposed to that, once I started looking for new things, I was old enough that what would resonate with that Me was going to be both strongly influenced by what I knew and an utter crapshoot.
When I began having enough money to actually buy books on my own, I went through the James Blish Star Trek adaptions--those are the first that I remember buying on my own, with my own money--quickly. They were fast and familiar; it was about the same time that circumstances were such that my folks' iron control over the television began to slip, and I'd seen most of the episodes. But even with SPOCK MUST DIE!, there was a limit to those and I read so fast that even with re-reads, they were done and old quickly. So I began to look for other things. I don't remember which I bought or read first, but certainly I knew about THE HOBBIT; the memory of what prompted me to pick up WATERSHIP is long since gone.
However it was--and in whatever order--I remember the two of them as the first steps on the path that made me the reader that I am today. I've posted my early HOBBITs elsewhere; this copy of WATERSHIP in my collection today may be the worst-conditioned book that I own, but it's an American first edition/first printing, and I wouldn't get rid of it for the world.
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Originally Posted by zelig
